NEK CHAND

NEK CHAND
1924 – | INDIA

Rock Garden, Chandigarh

Nek Chand Saini is an Indian self-taught artist famous for building the Rock Garden, an eighteen acre sculpture garden in Chandigarh, India. In 1951, Chand moved to Chandigarh to work as a road inspector for the Indian government’s Public Works Department. In 1958, he began collecting shaped rocks, discarded materials and recyclable items from the demolitions of the old city and the yards of Le Corbusier projects for the new ones. Around 1965, working secretly at night and on weekends in a publicly owned forest reserve, Nek assembled the materials, including rocks, broken crockery and colored stones, using concrete and a few primitive tools. Ten years later, in 1975, city inspectors stumbled across this illegal construction in the forest and Chandigarh bureaucracy wanted it destroyed. After much debate, the Chandigarh Landscape Advisory Committee relented and allowed Nek Chand to open his creation to the public.

The “Rock Garden” (name gave by M.S. Randhawa) was formally inaugurated on 1976. Thereafter Chand was encouraged to enlarge his garden and continue his many projects. Hundreds of statues dance across the mosaic tiles of the garden, gangs of elephants, monkeys and other animal sculptures also populate the garden. There are passages and trails, wonderful waterfalls designed by Nek Chand that giving he entire garden the feeling of a living, breathing jungle community. The garden is a living and colorful tribute to art and ingenuity and a wholly Indian exhibition. From the time of its creation, the garden has received worldwide acclaim and can easily be visited from Chandigarh.